The Travel Guide

There are two sensible routes in. Ercan airport, around forty minutes from Kyrenia, is served by frequent flights via Turkey, either a short connection in Istanbul or a direct seasonal charter, and it delivers you almost to the doorstep. The new terminal, opened in 2023, has made it a genuinely comfortable arrival.

The alternative is flying direct to Larnaca in the south, then crossing the border by car. That is around ninety minutes to Kyrenia via the Metehan or Beyarmudu crossings, passport open, formalities brief. Direct European flights often make this the quicker door to door option, and crossing is routine in both directions. Hire cars from the south can usually cross with an inexpensive insurance add on; check when booking, or arrange a transfer, which we do for every visiting client.

Kyrenia makes the natural first base: boutique hotels in the old town within a stroll of the harbour, larger resort hotels along the coast either side, and good restaurants in walking distance of both. Something genuinely nice costs markedly less than the famous Mediterranean resorts outside high summer. For a second visit, the small hotels in the mountain villages of Karmi, Lapta and Bellapais trade convenience for character and views.

If your trip is partly reconnaissance for a purchase, stay in the area you are considering rather than touring from one base. A holiday apartment in Esentepe or Long Beach for a week, plentiful on the usual booking platforms at modest nightly rates, teaches you more about supermarket runs, road noise and evening atmosphere than any number of daytime viewings. We can suggest specific well run sites in each area.

The northern shore runs from Kyrenia’s Venetian harbour, where dinner by the water is obligatory at least once, east through a string of coves and beach clubs to Alagadi, where green turtles nest in summer and the beach is protected and gloriously undeveloped. Escape Beach west of town has the calmest swimming for families; the beach clubs near Esentepe pair loungers with good kitchens.

The east coast is a different register: the long sands of Famagusta Bay and Long Beach, warm shallow water into November, and behind them the walled city of Famagusta, where Othello’s tower and gothic churches sit inside Venetian ramparts. Beyond, the Karpaz peninsula stretches out with wild donkeys, empty dunes and Golden Beach, which many visitors call the most beautiful place on the island, and there is still almost nothing there. Go before that changes.

The Kyrenia range rewards every hour you give it. St Hilarion castle, a fairy tale ruin a thousand feet above the coast, is the essential first climb; Buffavento, higher and emptier, is for the second visit. The abbey at Bellapais, Lawrence Durrell’s village, is loveliest late in the day when the coaches have gone and the light goes gold on the cloister.

The villages are the island’s slow heart. Karmi’s whitewashed lanes, Lapta’s spring fed gardens, Ozanköy’s carob mills and the mountain road between them make an easy, unhurried day. Walkers should come in spring: the ridge trails between February and May cross wild orchids, cyclamen and long views to the Taurus mountains across the water, and the temperature is perfect for it.

Some meals here justify the journey on their own. The fish restaurants of the small east coast harbours serve the morning’s catch grilled with lemon and little ceremony, and a long fish lunch by the water costs a fraction of its equivalent on the familiar Mediterranean coasts. In the mountain villages, Sunday slow cooked lamb, called kleftiko here as in the south, sells out by two o’clock, and arriving early is part of the ritual.

A full meze remains the island’s great set piece: twenty odd dishes arriving in waves, from village halloumi and wild greens to charcoal kebabs, best undertaken hungry and unhurried. Round things off as Cypriots do, with Turkish coffee, a piece of syrup soaked künefe and no plans for the rest of the afternoon. The best addresses change; ask us, or ask any local, and note that the finest places rarely bother with signage.

Day one: land, settle in Kyrenia, and walk the harbour before dinner at the water’s edge. Day two: St Hilarion in the morning cool, lunch and the abbey in Bellapais, evening back at the harbour. Day three: the coast east, with a swim at Alagadi, a beach club lunch near Esentepe and, if you are property minded, a couple of unhurried viewings along the way.

Day four: Famagusta’s walled city in the morning, the long warm shallows of the bay after lunch, and the drive back along the coast at golden hour. Day five: either the long push to the Karpaz for wild donkeys and Golden Beach, or a slow village day through Karmi and Lapta with a mountain lunch. Five days is enough to understand the island; it is rarely enough to want to leave.